Monthly Archives: August 2010

Create a Hyper-V cluster of at least two Hyper-V Parent machines using a third File Share Witness (I used a share off my DC). After you create your Failover Cluster, zone and mask storage to both nodes of your new cluster. Use the Failover Cluster Manager to add the newly zoned storage as a cluster resource, then convert the volume to a Cluster Shared Volume. This is far easier than I make it sound.

Now, the Hyper-V Manager to edit your default properties to store machines and virtual machine definition files on the newly created CSV. Now, use the Failover Cluster Manager to create a new Virtual Machine — and make sure you are storing it on the CSV. Viola. Done. You are now booting your VM from SAN.

The data partitions, can now be stored in the same CSV (NOT recommended!!!), stored on a second or third VM, stored on a SCSI Passthrough volume, or stored via iSCSI initiator — all on the SAN — in separate storage pools, RAID Groups, etc.

Dell is buying 3PAR. Oracle has Sun and Exadata. EMC now has Greenplum. Cisco sells telephony and servers. IBM is selling SATA drives to the enterprise as XIV and is reselling NTAP, but its storage architect is out on the loose, again. Who did I leave out? Oh, HP… The only one NOT making moves is Microsoft?! Actually that’s not completely true… Microsoft continues to “innograte” — the act of innovating by integrating acquired technology into your existing products’ evolution. DATAllegro, Opalis, and so on…

I keep thinking about the famous economic principle that states “you will ultimately be undone by your past”. If EMC could just shed its dependency on Dell’s relationships with all those purchasing agents… If Cisco could just lose the MDS and the Catalyst… if IBM could just forget about the XIV and buy NTAP already!… And HP… Oh HP…

It has become painfully clear that the order of the components in the OSI model, in fact, serves as a roadmap. Never forget that the Application is always at the top. Whatever the application needs, the application gets. If you don’t sell an application, don’t expect to tell anyone what to do. Ever. If your application is actually a utility for another application, don’t forget that fact. Your “utility” is NOT the application.

Oracle has Java, yes. Java is a development tool, not an application, but how about Siebel, PeopleSoft, JDEdwards? Dell has … nothing. HP has … nothing. IBM has DB2 and Lotus. Cisco has Unity — yes Voicemail is an application. EMC has … hmmm VMware? VMware is actually an infrastructure tool — it’s like a server hardware manufacturer that lets you use whatever server vendor you want. EMC also has Documentum — a utility that is configured as an application. Microsoft, on the other hand, has all the applications you can shake a stick at. If Microsoft says their application needs 100-spinning dancers to run, guess what you’re buying?

The way to true technology marketplace leadership is through applications that people actually use. People love Microsoft Office. They love their iPhones, their Androids, their Blackberries (often seen as tools… but they’re not — an iPhone is a collection of applications — remember… “there’s and APP for that!!!”). People also love web-based applications like Facebook, Salesforce, gmail, and LinkedIn. It seems to me… that HP, IBM, Dell, and EMC would do well to think about what people are using to “run their lives” and follow those markets.

Does it matter that Dell has 3PAR? Does it matter that EMC has DataDomain? Does it matter that Oracle has Sun and VirtualIron and BAE, and Java? — I don’t think so — but Oracle DOES have Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JDEdwards — real APPLICATIONS. So at the end of the day, I think it becomes pretty clear who will be pulling and who will be pushing… Take a look at what people are DOING. The truth will show you the way: